BHIVA and the Fowler Report

BHIVA Calls for full engagement of Clinicians in HIV/AIDS Policy Process

London (5 September 2011) - BHIVA (British HIV Association), the UK’s leading association representing professionals in HIV care, welcomes the recommendations contained within the House of Lords’ report on HIV and AIDS, ‘No vaccine, no cure: HIV and AIDS in the United Kingdom’, authored by Lord Fowler.

BHIVA embraces the report’s emphasis on prevention and public health, supports the recommendations in respect of surveillance, testing, treatment, research, training and education, welcomes the renewed dialogue on these hugely important issues and celebrates the platform the report provides for further professional debate.

BHIVA calls now for the HIV/AIDS policy process to actively engage with specialist clinicians and experts from the social and behavioural sciences, to provide expertise and added value to help turn the recommendations into reality.

Professor Jane Anderson, Chairman, BHIVA comments:

“We welcome Lord Fowler’s report for bringing HIV in the UK back into the spotlight. BHIVA’s members are committed to ensuring that clinicians work together to maintain the highest clinical standards and governance. For that reason we warmly welcome the recognition of the high quality of HIV care in the UK based on BHIVA’s treatment guidelines and standards.

In particular, BHIVA has consistently argued for free treatment for everyone living with HIV in the UK and hopes the Lords’ views on this topic will now help to make this a reality.

BHIVA backs the report’s recognition of the social stigma attached to HIV and, because of that, we believe that increased engagement with the social sciences is critical to the overall public campaign against HIV education, treatment and prevention and call on policy to recognise that.

Within the report there are fundamental policy areas where we believe that clinical professionals must be fully involved. In particular, we call for interdisciplinary collaboration, especially in the areas of service configuration and delivery, as more patients move through the healthcare system and require long term, and often complex treatment programmes.”

About BHIVA
Founded in 1995, BHIVA has become the leading UK professional association representing professionals in HIV care.

It acts as a national advisory body to professions and other organisations on all aspects of HIV care. BHIVA also provides a national platform for HIV care and contributes representatives for international, national and local committees dealing with HIV care. In addition, BHIVA works to promote undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing medical education within HIV care.

The current membership of the association is over 1,000 across a wide range of healthcare professionals and other HIV healthcare workers.